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I drink Earl Grey in the morning with my oatmeal or Grape Nuts (I alternate every day), half a banana, and some walnuts. I got a good night’s sleep but still felt a little tired, so I changed my morning routine by adding the cocktail.

It was a pleasant 15 minutes.

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My mother and me in Santa Paula, California

Today marks the 50th anniversary of my mother’s death. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I miss her deeply. And I always laugh when I wonder if she’d recognize me if we passed each other on the street. I’m an old guy now. She was 49 when she died. I was 22.

She died after a long bout with breast cancer. Sadly, it wasn’t the only illness she had to deal with. She moved from Detroit to Los Angeles when she was a teenager for her health. She lived with relatives in Boyle Heights until the rest of her family followed.

When I was 11 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was benign, but it changed all of our lives. And the effects of the operation followed us for the rest of her life. But she was loving and giving when she was healthy. And I could always count on her. She was beautiful and in her younger years and attracted a lot of attention on the SoCal beaches. After she was married and had my sister and me, she was active in her women’s club, where she was president.

In the late fifties, she appeared on a national television show on NBC. It was called “It Could Be You.” The program was just like “This is Your Life,” but for the not famous. Unbeknownst to her, her fellow women’s club and my father had been gathering information on her life. The show opened with a bright studio light roaming the audience, suddenly stopping on some unsuspecting person with the announcer saying, “It Could Be You Betty Gates.” They brought her up on stage and told the audience the story of how my father and mother met.

In the early 2000, I read in the Washington Post that NBC had just donated transcripts of all their early 1950s daytime shows to the Library of Congress. “It Could Be You” was part of that donation. So, every other Monday, when I had a day off, I would spend the day searching for the transcript of my mother’s show on microfiche. I almost threw up a few times as I whizzed by the various episodes until I learned to look away as I went through the archive. I had no idea which date the show aired so I had to go through a lot of film. But one day, I FOUND IT! I have the entire transcript of the show which tells the wonderful story of their first meeting in Detroit. Then, after WWII, my father made his way to LA to go to USC where they met up again.

On their first meeting, they exchanged walnuts with each of their names written on the shells. My mother still had hers. It was falling apart and was held together with rubber bands. My father, on the other hand, ate his later on that day.

Today I have lighted a Yarseit candle for her. Yarseit is Yiddish for anniversary and is used on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. I don’t usually do this, but this year I wanted to. I miss her. And I’m sorry that she never got to meet my wife, Susie and my daughters, Lily and Eve. She would have loved them.

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My father and me, taken in the early 1960s, when we encountered a demonstration of the brand new Polaroid instant camera. Funny how I eventually became a photographer.

Today marks the centennial of my father’s birth, November 19, 1921. He died in 2000. We had a complicated relationship, and I’ve spent a good deal of my life investigating his life to better understand why. He never talked about his childhood. So I had to dig for that information. In the end, I did my best to be a good son and to honor him at the end of his life.

I got a call from my father’s second wife, Vera, at the office at 11:30 am that October. She was crying, which was very unusual for her. I’d never seen her cry. She was distant. My father was in the hospital, and I’d better get out there. I called my wife, asking her to pack for me. I called the airline, and by 6 pm, L.A. time, I was on the 405 on the way to his hospital bed.

I stayed there for ten days. But then, I had to get back to work. Yet we knew the end was near. I changed my flight to the afternoon to come back for one more visit the morning I left. He was asleep, and I don’t even know if he knew I was there. But I wanted to make this passage different than it had been with my mother’s death. I sat there and looked at every inch of him, from his head to his toes. I wanted to remember him as best as I could. Then I left. I never shed a tear.

Two weeks later, he died. And, once again, I flew from my home in D.C. to L.A. for his funeral. I arrived at the mortuary early. They asked me if I wanted to take a final look at him. I started to walk into the room and forced myself to stop. I turned around. I wanted to remember him alive, not dead. It took a lot of energy to turn around. Inertia is real.

His funeral was actually like an Abbott and Costello movie. The rabbi had been an old family friend of my mother’s (who had died many years before), and, during the ceremony, mixed up my mother with my Vera (she was horrified; I laughed to myself). When he said my father graduated from UCLA, I had to speak up: “No, he graduated from USC. I graduated from UCLA.” I got the last word, Dad!

That October, I spent 20 hours in the air, and I used all of my time writing about my father on my Palm Pilot. I kept those remembrances but vowed I would not take a deep dive into writing about him until Vera was no longer here. I certainly didn’t owe her anything, nor did she owe me. But I didn’t want to hurt her nonetheless. She died last year, and I know exactly where all those notes are. But I did write small snippets about our relationship. Here’s part of one missive I wrote about him when Ronald Reagan died called “A Final Gift For My Father.”

“In my father’s final days, I asked him if there was anything I could do for her after he died. I had tried to think of everything I wanted to say to him, and, as difficult as it was for me, I added this to my list. ‘Love her,’ was his strong and clear reply. ‘Love her.’

“If ever there was a person who made it clear she didn’t want anything from me, let alone my love, it was Vera. But I told Dad I would do my best, not knowing how I could ever hope to fulfill his dying request.

“When I told a good friend my dilemma, she replied, ‘But Jeff, you already have loved her. When you told her you would be there for her, despite your differences, you did so without any thoughts of getting something in return.’ So I had. I was relieved and surprised. How did I learn to act so maturely, to face the difficult issues head-on? This was a new kind of love: a very difficult kind.”

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We all have out rituals, both communal and individual. With our annual “changing of the clocks” each November, I partake in my autumnal “changing of the socks” formality.

I’ve made my life easy. I wear mainly black socks. If I lose one, there are many others to take its place (as long as I continue to have only two feet). And I don’t have to go hunting for that “other” each morning. Cotton in the summer and Smartwool socks in the winter.

Yesterday, I rotated my socks. My wool ones went into my sock drawer and my cotton went into a drawer in my closet.

I’m set for a while. Thanks for asking.

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Should you be one of the millions who spend their day going back into bloggers’ archives, you’ll find several blurbs about me, my family, and life in general—some funny (as life can be when you’re the dad in a house of women) and some serious (like my post on 9/11). I started blogging in February 2001: an early adopter. Oh, you’ll also come upon some bad links. I’m slowly fixing those.

Welcome back!

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With a childhood like that, my grocery shopping has morphed into something less time-consuming. And, my wife and I split the chore. She makes the list and I go to Trader Joe’s, where as they say, everything is a special. But, like my father, I am efficient. I have created a shopping list template for my wife listing the placement of every item in the exact order of my trail through the grocery aisles. I want to get in and out as fast as I can.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed her list has become more a mix between a crossword puzzle, a rebus, and a scavenger hunt. A few weeks back, I got to my last stop in frozen foods where she told me to buy some “Chicken Tenders.” Chicken tenders? We haven’t bought those since my youngest was four. Now that we’re virtual empty nesters (my oldest is in college and my high school senior refuses to eat with us), I couldn’t imagine any recipe we would make that called for processed meat nuggets.

Over the years, I’ve grown to know the people who work at my local Trader Joe’s. We kibitz, we joke, and I complain about their penchant for moving things around without telling me (thus making my ordered shopping list obsolete). So, I stopped George as he walked by. “What do you think this means?” I asked, pointing to my wife’s notation. He stopped to consider my problem. “Does she mean chicken tenderloins?” Yeah, we eat those all the time. That’s what she meant. But, why would she write tenders instead of tenderloins when I could so easily get confused? When I got home I asked her. “Oh, I knew you’d know what I meant.” Really?

My wife’s list started to become more abstract.

A few weeks later the list told me to buy “1 Unforgetable cheese.” I knew what that meant. Trader Joe’s makes a cheddar cheese that has a hint of Parmesan. It’s tasty and cheap. But, it’s called “Unexpected Cheddar Cheese.” The taste is unforgettable, although, apparently its name is not. I felt triumphant. I had deciphered her code and I didn’t even have to ask for help! But my victory was short-lived. Two lines down was this cryptic item: “round brownish wheat” with an accompanying illustration. Was that a tortilla? Tortillas are right next to the cheeses on my route and I often buy the whole-wheat variety. But she already had written tortillas. And then the next item: “New ones you’ve bought (smaller shape).” Sigh. What the hell was she talking about? Did she want crackers? They were on the other side of the cheese. I stood there while multiple clerks offered to help, that is until they saw the list.

Despite my scientific approach to shopping, my wife espoused a more artistic and interpretive way. I feel comfortable with the order of taxonomy. She likes abstract expressionism. I closed my eyes and picked a box. Wait, two boxes. I could have called her but that would have slowed me down. She would just have to live with the consequences of her artistic spirit. But I felt queasy.

Rainbow popsicles, indeterminate crackers, and broccoli parts

And then last week came the ultimate in cryptic mind games: a drawing of steps with the word “crackers” at the top. Okay, I figured out the steps. Those must be shelves. But there were a lot of crackers on the top shelf. This was so arcane, once again I was forced to use my lifeline: this time three clerks who had just been told to move all pasta sauce to the next aisle over. “What is this?” I asked, pointing to the drawing. No one knew. We laughed. They showed the list to their coworkers and they laughed. They understood me. Why didn’t my wife?

Discombobulated, I completely lost sight of my task. I was no longer my father’s son. Instead, I had become one of those undisciplined shoppers, grabbing whatever looked good to me. And, worse, I forgot to buy coffee even though it was clearly written on the list.

My wife couldn’t understand how I could forget the coffee.

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After the football game my wife and I took our older daughter out to dinner as we usually do on these Saturday evenings. A celebratory meal, certainly not for the prowess of our team, these after-game dinners reinforce the connections we have with our very independent children. With one in college and the other soon to be, we hardly ever see them. We are pre-empty nesters trying to get the hang of our new reality. This time, our younger daughter was entertaining friends at home. We decided on Ethiopian.

After dinner, we headed back to the dorm. As we inched our way down Main Street, the inebriated crowds of Homecoming alums slowed our trajectory. Suddenly from the back seat, “Shoot, my phone died.” Our eldest was totally disconnected from the outside. Now she was all ours. “So,” I said, do you talk to your sister much?” “A little.” “What do you guys talk about?” “That’s private Dad,” she said. I knew that even before I crossed the line. But, sometimes a father has to try. My wife, chimed in: “Well, I know when I talked to my sisters, we’d mostly talk about how crazy our parents were.” “Yeah, sorta,” my daughter replied. This was no surprise to me either.

We are evolved parents, definitely more together than our parents were. But, often I marvel at our family’s typical dysfunctions. I always wanted to be the parent of an atypical family.

“Dad, can I borrow your phone?” She wanted to text her sister. Handing it to her, it’s now just my wife and I. We chitchatted about the crowds, while I tried to direct her into the right lane. Backseat driving is one of our typical foibles. My wife knew what she’s doing. My daughter handed the phone back to me.

Of course I looked! Nothing much to see. Just a text to her sister saying we’re done with dinner and heading back. Sometimes I think these texts are warnings. Clean up the house and get everyone out. Mom and Dad are coming home. The house always looks nice and tidy upon our return.

My youngest responded with “Kk,” short for “okay.” We arrived at the dorm; we said our goodbyes and watched her walk to her room. While she was walking, it suddenly occurred to me, I had been given an opportunity to smooth over our familial dysfunction just a teensy-weensy. You know, soften it just a bit. I had the text convo between my daughters in my hand. So, I typed, “Oh, and dad was great tonight.” Yes, I know. In the spur of the moment, with great power beckoning, I forgot to add my wife.

Dysfunctional? Yes. Typical? No way.

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